Pied Piper lbadm-5

by Ridley Pearson

  “Just waking up,” Trish explained. No matter her own relationship with Phyllis, it was good for all to have a grandmother around.

  In a voice that grated like bad brakes, Phyllis admonished, “Don’t forget some shower scrub, will you? Sidney says the shower is growing into a rain forest.”

  Phyllis then turned in time to watch Trish blush scarlet at the idea that her husband was reporting her housecleaning abilities to his mother.

  “It’s the climate,” Trish explained with the knowingness of a transplanted Californian. “Hang out a fresh towel, it’s damp by evening.”

  “Which, though it’s bad for a lot of things, is good for the skin. You know, Trish, you could use a little moisturizer around the eyes.” She winked. A little harder and the entire fake lash would have fallen off.

  Trish reminded, “I’m at the gym ’til two, then the market.”

  “Same as always,” the older woman said. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

  “Home at three,” she reminded, heading to the back door, glad to be out of there.

  Throughout the crunches, the leg lifts, the treadmill, the Northwest News Station carried updates on the Pied Piper kidnapping. A blonde-it had to be dyed-realtor was said to be a possible eyewitness that police and FBI were questioning. An adorable picture of the missing child was repeatedly shown and an 800 number superimposed on the screen. Trish felt God-awful for the poor parents. The TV reporter said something about thirty thousand children going missing each year, though most were over six years old. But for Trish and the rest of Seattle, it was only one child that mattered right now, and that was Rhonda Shotz.

  She didn’t know what she would do if she ever lost Hayes. The kidnapper had overcome some teenage baby sitter. Thank God for Phyllis, she thought, in a rare moment of appreciation. She pitied the man who crossed Phyllis.

  CHAPTER 7

  On Friday morning, March 13, two days after the Shotz kidnapping, Boldt pulled a chair into his former office cubicle, now occupied by LaMoia. “A lesson,” he said, opening a file. “Flemming’s people loaned us a look at their report on the AFIDs found at the various crime scenes.”

  “Stolen,” LaMoia guessed.

  “But of course,” Boldt answered. “An entire shipment of the replacement cartridges for the air TASER went missing when an eighteen-wheeler was hijacked west of Chicago two years ago. Until the first child was kidnapped in San Diego, the FBI had lost track of it. The ATF had not. Three dozen of the cartridges were bought out of Las Vegas seven months ago using a counterfeit card-”

  “Surprise.”

  “At a gun shop that dealt black-market goods. These militia boys love untraceable hardware. The ATF did some good work. The owner of the card was under surveillance by the FBI for three weeks before any questions were asked. This cardholder lives in Kansas City, runs a commercial air-conditioning company-wife, kids, the whole number. When they get around to questioning him, he says that only the one errant charge was ever made-six hundred and change-and this is supported by his formal complaint to the card company. But as you and I know, it’s not how a stolen card is typically used, so the Bureau takes a handoff from ATF and grinds this one in with their toes. They ran every possible lead-tracked this guy’s movements for a two-year period, his wife’s, their phone records, even UPS and FedEx histories. Clean bill of health-he’s not connected.”

  “Too bad,” LaMoia said.

  “But they have the Las Vegas connection, so they pursue it-maybe they bust the rest of the cartridges and plea bargain information on the three dozen sold. Together they had two dozen agents on it, including a half dozen undercover.”

  “But did they find the cartridges?” LaMoia asked. Hill’s dislike of the federal agencies had infected LaMoia.

  “No. They chased some information-it’s all in here-conducted maybe twenty interrogations, but the cartridges were long gone and not one of the gun dealers was saying to where. The Bureau now believes that maybe a third of the original shipment made Las Vegas. Trail went cold. But keep in mind: The AFIDs found at each of the ten crime scenes are for cartridges part of that original shipment.”

  “So, cold or not, it’s still a trail to follow,” LaMoia suggested.

  “Exactly. The Bureau followed the evidence.”

  “But-” LaMoia said sharply, all too familiar with Boldt’s inflection. He considered where Boldt might take this and said, “You would pursue the victim.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the only real victim in sight is this credit card holder.” LaMoia thought a moment and said, “They considered him a suspect but never made the jump back to victim. They chased the cartridges instead-the evidence.”

  “For which no one can fault them.”

  “But whoever used this guy’s credit card number had to get it somehow. A discarded carbon-”

  “Telephone mail order …,” Boldt contributed.

  “A waiter at a restaurant, any number of cashiers, Ticket-Master.”

  Boldt nodded and said, “Random or not, they got hold of this guy’s card number. The Pied Piper made contact, directly or indirectly.”

  “He could have bought it off any of hundreds of counterfeiters who knew the number was valid.”

  “Maybe,” Boldt agreed, “but there’s still a bridge there between the kidnapper and that cardholder.”

  “And you want me to pursue it,” LaMoia added sarcastically, “because I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  “Intelligence doesn’t investigate,” Boldt reminded. “We collect and analyze.”

  LaMoia mimicked the man, making faces and mouthing his words. His pager vibrated at his side. He held it into the light: Its message screen carried a string of ten numbers.

  Boldt tapped the file and picked it up. “If you need any specifics, I’ve got this. Happy to help.” He stood and left before LaMoia could think of a way to beg some investigative work from him. He looked back at the pager.

  The time of day told him as much as the page itself: an hour before lunch. He dialed the first seven numbers. An operator’s voice answered, “Mayflower Hotel.” He hung up. Fancy digs, he thought.

  He had logged nearly fifteen hours of O.T. since Wednesday night. One thing about a major crime: It made you rich. But he had traded sleep for the O.T. and knew that despite his surface energy he would pay. Lack of sleep seemed to galvanize him, at least for the first three days. After that, it was all downhill. He was in a holding pattern, awaiting results from the lab on the broken glass-the penny flute had come up clean. Boldt had pointed him toward a good chase, the credit card.

  Doris Shotz, mother of the abducted child, maintained a vigil on the oak bench out in the hallway, her young son at her side. To pass by her out there made LaMoia sick to his stomach. His offers of coffee or pop went refused, attempts to communicate went unreciprocated; she sat there, an icon to the task force’s incompetence, which in turn reminded him of the four o’clock meeting the day before.

  Thursday’s four o’clock task force meeting, the first of its kind, had run about as smoothly as an elementary school play. With the FBI and SPD in the same room, both believing themselves in control, the meeting had ended in a confrontation.

  Sheila Hill lorded over the head of the table, passing judgment with her stern facial expressions.

  Homicide’s situation room, a glorified conference room wrapped around a large oval table that sat twelve, doubled as task force headquarters. At the near end, behind Hill, a white board held scribbled notes in colorful markers. To Hill’s right, a well-worn cork bulletin board adorned with crime scene photographs carried family photos not only of the Shotz residence and child but of nine other small and smiling faces.

  Matthews and Mulwright looked up as a sharp rap on the door announced the entrance of two gray suits and a gray skirt that was occupied by a long and slender pair of dark legs. As Special Agent in Charge, Gary Flemming headed the FBI’s investigation and had done so since the first kidnapping in San Diego. He
had arrived in Seattle expecting that he and his team would control any and all kidnapping investigations, an opportunity removed by SPD’s advance formation of the task force and Sheila Hill’s appointment as its commander. Flemming had lost the upper hand. Hill had warned all her subordinates to expect Flemming to do everything in his power to regain it.

  A substantial man with ebony skin and a head nearly shaved clean to hide encroaching baldness, Flemming had a worried-looking face and bloodshot eyes. He sat in the chair immediately to Hill’s left and spoke in a deeply rich voice. He made no apology for his late arrival; nor did Hill for starting without him. Flemming’s reputation preceded him: meticulous, ambitious, firm, demanding. He got results. An astute politician and negotiator, Flemming not only understood law enforcement politics but had overseen six hostage/kidnapping investigations and had never lost a victim. He held the highest clearance rate for kidnappings in the Bureau’s history. One listened carefully to his words and looked for hidden content.

  “We’re coming up on forty-eight hours,” he cautioned. “He and his victim are long gone from the city by now. We’d like to help with the glass samples you recovered,” he informed LaMoia, who stared back stunned by the man’s information and his arrogance. “You have some pollen as well, as I understand it.” He referred to the yellow smudge Boldt had noticed on the crib. LaMoia didn’t know where he got his information, but earlier that day the department’s lab had IDed the yellow powder as pollen, genus unknown. Flemming continued, “This pollen was found on the child’s crib, as well as on some carpet fibers your lab obtained from the crime scene.” He editorialized sarcastically, “Of course, I know you were going to share this with us, but as I understand it, the fibers came off a floor mat from last year’s Taurus-which, according to color schemes, should make it a champagne-brown exterior, I believe.” LaMoia understood then that Flemming’s people had already interrogated the Shotzes and had made inquiries at the lab, all with no one the wiser. Strangely, he did not dislike Flemming for this, but found himself admiring him. Flemming continued, “Our lab people would like to review the pollen as well as the Taurus fibers ASAP. We’d also like to conduct our own interview with this realtor, Daech. Quite frankly, Captain,” he said, addressing Sheila Hill, “we’re a little disappointed we weren’t included in the first round with Daech.”

  “I have a decent relationship established with Daech,” LaMoia informed him.

  “I’m sure you do,” Flemming returned, staring him down.

  “Cop to witness,” LaMoia explained, his admiration melting away.

  “From what we know of your reputation,” the linebacker, Dunkin Hale, contributed, “that would be something of a first.”

  Only Mulwright laughed.

  Hill cautioned the FBI man, “That’s enough of that! She’s LaMoia’s witness, and she’s assisting this investigation.”

  “For the sake of the investigation,” Hale questioned, “or for the publicity?”

  Hill decided, “You’re welcome to the sergeant’s notes. Let’s leave the witness to him, shall we? You gang-bang her and we’ll lose her.”

  “The notes will do fine,” Flemming acknowledged, having never taken his eyes off LaMoia. “And perhaps the sergeant will allow us to add a few questions to his script for their next session.” Flemming hesitated, holding the attention of everyone in the room. He said, “Let me be perfectly candid, shall I? This is my investigation. Has been since San Diego and that first kidnapping. Task Force, Special Crimes Unit-dress it up however you want, make all the claims of ownership you want, it’s not going to affect me. Sticks and stones, as far as I’m concerned. It’s these kids I’m worried about, not the name tags or the stripes on the sleeves-the kids. And it’s mine. Not yours,” he said to Hill, “or yours,” he said to LaMoia, “mine. You play games with me-concealing evidence, delaying reports-and you’ll regret it. That’s about as clear as I can make it to you. And why will you regret it? Because I don’t give a shit about you or your careers. I’ll walk right over you if necessary.”

  Looking at Hill he added, “Destroy you, if necessary. Any one of you. All of you. Any of my people as well, and they know this about me.” Hale and Kalidja did not so much as blink. “They know it’s about the kids, and only the kids. It’s about catching this guy and doing whatever it takes to find those kids. Rant, rave, scream, bitch, kick-complain to whomever you wish. Washington D.C.-I don’t care. It won’t do you a bit of good. Why? Because it’s mine to win or lose, and lose is not an option. Remember this, and remember it clearly: You are working for me. You are working for these kids, and I am their guardian angel. I am bringing them home. And the first person to get in my way, the first person to slow me down even a step, is going to wish they’d never seen this thing, wish they’d never heard of it.” He met eyes with each person, sighed deeply and said, “Ah. Feels good to get that off my chest.”

  Daphne Matthews spoke in a near whisper, thereby commanding everyone’s attention. As if reviewing the fundamentals, she said, “A task force is assembled to facilitate an open-minded exchange. The FBI can run an investigation without us-as we can without them. The point, the intention, of such a task force is to bring us all under one tent,” she looked at Flemming, “so that we don’t double up the lab work,” to LaMoia, “so we don’t monopolize a witness. The daily four o’clock is our chance as a team to share our progress and our hurdles, to communicate, to facilitate a more efficient investigation.”

  Mulwright interrupted, “They withheld critical information.”

  “The AFIDs, the penny flute,” LaMoia said, “we would have withheld those as well.”

  The lack of team support angered Mulwright. True to form, he had not heard a word of what Matthews had to say.

  Flemming said, “I think I’ve made my position perfectly clear. Or are there questions?”

  Dunkin Hale, a thirty-five-year-old red-headed jock with an attitude, chewed gum violently and wore a thick gold wedding ring on his left hand. They didn’t make ties to fit necks like his; the silk knot stood out like a large thumb protruding from his Adam’s apple. His attention remained primarily on Flemming, a dog awaiting a scrap, his loyalty unmistakable.

  Flemming informed them, “We are looking for this Taurus.”

  He nodded to Hale, who said, “We’re running rental car contracts-all contracts made here in the past four days compared against all rentals contracted in the week prior to the Portland and San Francisco kidnappings. Credit card comparison, model requests. It’s slow going, but maybe it kicks a match.”

  “Who informed the press of the hundred-thousand-dollar reward?” Mulwright challenged. “The phone number in that release was the task force hot line, not an FBI number I noticed, which means it’s us getting a couple hundred calls an hour, all of which have to be followed up, meaning we’re out chasing ghost stories while you guys are working real leads. Is that cooperation?”

  “Lieutenant!” Hill chided. “Although we were in fact blind-sided by the reward and the flood of calls it caused, let none of us forget that the task force phone number was our idea. We asked for this.”

  Flemming spoke in his low, warm voice, “Special Agent Kalidja is our research expert and our fact-finder.” Delegate the problems: what every bureaucrat learns early on.

  Kay Kalidja’s parents had immigrated from the Caribbean. She had lighter skin than Flemming and widely set, Asian eyes. Bone thin, she looked more like a runway model than an FBI agent. She wore a starched white shirt and crisp gray suit. Her tobacco-colored hair was done in corn rows with terra-cotta beads that clicked if she shook her head quickly. She kept her attention on Flemming like a benched athlete watching her coach, and took her cue.

  Her voice was musical, her accent vaguely British. The moment she spoke, she captivated everyone. “The press release was our doing, it is true. We have case history to support that an informed public, an alert public, a motivated public, can and does lead to arrests. Also, although there is no ap
parent direct link between widespread publicity and the abrupt end to the kidnappings in the prior cities, its influence cannot be discounted. In each case, the louder the cry of the press, the quicker the kidnapper moved on.”

  Daphne Matthews objected, “Moved on, yes. But that’s all.”

  Flemming reminded, “It’s to our benefit if we keep this guy on the run.”

  Daphne Matthews contested, “The penny flutes indicate a person intent on making a statement. We put him between twenty-five and forty. High school graduate at least. Organized-he knows what the hell he’s doing; what comes next. Most likely scenario: He never met his father, mother died before he was fifteen. He’s never known any family. If he’s using the children sexually, then he will have been arrested on similar though lesser offenses-he may or may not have served time. If he’s selling the children, then we can be fairly certain he was an only child, and that his mother either sexually abused, physically mistreated or abandoned him. We have a disturbed but rational individual who suffers no remorse. The children are either a form of company-we call it the Boo Radley Syndrome; a source of physical pleasure for him-a diddler; or a means to financial enrichment. He’s a con artist-”

  “Now wait just a minute!” Flemming said, cutting her off. “This is where you and five of this agency’s best criminal behaviorists happen to disagree, Ms. Matthews.”

  “Lieutenant,” she corrected.

  It won a grin from Flemming, an act that seemed foreign to his face. “Irrespective of your profile, our people give great weight to the influence of publicity on the perpetrator’s behavior.”

  “He’s monitoring the press,” Daphne confirmed. “I have no argument there. But allowing it to dictate his actions? He’s an organized personality, a control freak. He’s not going to let the news services, the FBI or the police run his show. There is no consistent thread linking news reporting and his abandoning a city. To the contrary, the decision seems random-designed to keep law enforcement off guard.” She paused, the silence in the room suffocating. “How thoroughly have you investigated known confidence men?”